Hey there,
This is SO much going and although it isn't all positive, I can't deny the energy in the air. Have you noticed it? Everyone is posting, everyone is updating, everyone is doing something! In the spirit of everyone being busy, I won't keep you long. I just want to reiterate my suggestion for folks trying to plan weddings and celebrations to postpone their events!
Do you listen to the Covid-19 updates daily? I don't. I have found that the world will tell me what they heard, the government will then tell us what they meant to say and then someone will write it down on a website and that's what it is. I just did a skim of the State of Ohio's website, here is the link if you're interested Ohio Dept. of Health.
Here's the thing, there's TOO much confusion surrounding the virus, the rules and the non-rules. The average wedding is running $26,000 for about 160 people. That's a large chunk of money to spend with only the HOPES of the wedding turning out the way you'd like. People are uneasy right now, traveling for non-essential reasons (aka your wedding is a non-essential reason) is unnecessary. People have been out of work for months, some households have had both earners out of work for months. People have not been able to plan in advance to travel for weddings because we all just found out 10 days ago that weddings were allowed again. To be quite honest, they haven't even used the word "Weddings" they are using the term "Large Social Gatherings".
There's still no dancing allowed, technically there is some social distance dancing allowed but...nah. Who wants that? How do you even manage that?
Are you going to tell your guests to stop dancing too close? Are you going to be upset if the venue manager says something to your guests (ultimately they could be held responsible if someone becomes sick in their facility)?
The catering requirements are pretty strict, are you sure they are all going to be followed? Are you confident in the catering company and staff that they have had enough time to learn, implement and enforce these new mandates? You can have a buffet if the wait staff is serving the food. They have to remain 6 feet apart from the guests and the guests 6 feet from each other. Can you picture that? Think of the buffet at the Golden Corral. The front of the counter and the back of the counter is maybe 3 feet wide and they have a sneeze guard in place (and honestly it's still disgusting). So, how do you move that over to your banquet hall facility to protect you and your guests? You really can't. The server will have on a masks, but the other guests won't. They will still be standing over the food and they will continue talking over the food - ick.
The chart above is from The Covid Tracking Project's Twitter feed, you can check them out by clicking HERE. I found their feed easy to follow and the numbers easy to understand. The chart shows the states that have reported over 400 new cases of COVID-19 as of yesterday.
Ohio has 325 new cases as of yesterday according to the numbers reported by Cleveland Scene Magazine (who has been OUTSTANDING with reporting information and data over the last several weeks). You can see the numbers below from yesterday and Monday.
The new numbers aren't in the thousands ( I get that) but it's enough that in event environments they become concerning. I'm by no way a numbers person or a reporter but I am following along because I'm genuinely concerned. I know how easily it is to let your guard down at events. Your instinct is to HUG and engage in body contact. Kids will go and hug everyone in the party because they're kids.
I truly feel some kind of way, because I don't think folks are being reasonable. I u understand that the numbers would be "padded" and the media could be sensationalizing the story but what if they aren't. What if we really need to sit down for one summer?
If you are planning on getting married in the Summer of 2020 it's time for you to order your invitations and prepare them to go out! You are asking your friends and family to choose between staying safe or coming to party with you. We are all waiting for the updated numbers to roll in to see if the relaxed restrictions across the country will have an impact on the number of new cases. Well, of course the numbers will increase, but the things is, the decision that we all have to make is if 400 new cases per state that result in 40 new deaths per state mean enough for us to disregard and move forward. What I know is that I have had numerous people impacted by Covid-19 and it didn't take 40 deaths, ONE death made a difference to them.
Take care of yourselves and maybe each other.